Stylized fun/frightening morality play

Rating: 8/10 (25 July 2005)

What would you do to survive? How much would you be willing to pay for a longer life? These are the issues at hand in Michael Bay's latest film, easily one of his better efforts (and helped by the absence of blockbuster king Jerry Bruckheimer, if only a little). The world Bay has created looks real. The action doesn't always. But he's brought an excellent cast on board to help the movie on its way.
Lincoln Six-Echo (Ewan McGregor) has lived underground for three years. He's something of a rebel in a nearly perfect society, one of two remaining sanctuaries from the contamination that has killed almost everything outside. That other sanctuary is the Island, a "Garden of Eden" that everyone hopes to go to, by winning the lottery. Lincoln's best friend is Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johanssen), who is a more obedient member of their society, who likes to show Lincoln up in a virtual fighting game powered by XBOX (the advertising is everywhere). Only Lincoln asks questions, like where does the food go that he and his friend Jones Three-Echo make every day? The only clues he can find come from a white-trash maintenance guy, McCord (Steve Buscemi), who works in the outer, more contaminated area of the society. Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean) worries about Lincoln's queries.
When Jordan wins the lottery to go to the Island, Lincoln has another of his bad dreams, only slightly different from before. He gets up in the middle of the night and slips into a restricted area, disguised as a doctor, where he makes a very disturbing discovery. Two of the citizens at Merrick were sent to the island. One, a lottery winner named Starkweather (Michael Clarke Duncan, a happy version of John Coffey), and Lima, a pregnant woman whose water just broke. Lima has been euthanized while her baby was delivered to another woman who looks just like her, and Starkweather is seen running down the hall with a surgical cut down the center of his chest.
Of course, as anyone who knows anything about this movie would know, Lincoln tells Jordan and they make an escape, pursued by a French mercenary (Djimon Hounsou, delectably amoral) and his cold-blooded cohorts. Merrick explains to Hounsou's Albert Laurent the importance of getting Jordan, since model Sarah Jordan is comatose in a New York hospital. The two find Lincoln's old buddy McCord at a biker bar, where they learn they've got a lot to learn about the outside world. Says Lincoln: "I've gotta go get McCord. He's in a can taking a dump," having absolutely no idea what that actually means. McCord sets them straight on who they really are, that they are actually clones of millionaires, and tries to get them on a train to L.A., where Lincoln's "sponsor" lives.
L.A., 2019 looks remarkably realistic. It's a believable future because the cars look almost the same, yet elevated trains keep going up and up and up, mercenaries fly around on hoverbikes, and cars have a finger-print identification system. Laurent and his cronies are following the "stolen" credit card McCord, now dead, gave to Lincoln. A series of shoot-outs occur between Laurent's guys and police, Laurent's guys and civilians, and especially, Laurent's guys and the two clones. The best scene during this is when our two heroes are riding on the back of a tractor trailer hauling train wheels, and untie them, sending them rolling along and into their pursuers' vehicles. Another scene, that was too hard to believe, was when the clones are hanging on the insignia of an office building, and fall ninety stories to still survive. "Jesus must REALLY love you," says a construction worker and witness to them, upon their miraculous survival.
More fun and excitement follows with the face-to-face confrontation of Lincoln Six-Echo with Tom Lincoln, a Scottish boat designer who is much more fun to watch, even if he's not the good guy the clone is.
McGregor, as both insurance and sponsor, is quite good. His American accent is actually better than the trailer would have me believe, and his sense of wonder is quite believable, as long as Bay remembers it, so too does his egocentric persona as the Scottish bad boy. (Since Lincoln's false memories are actually the memories of his sponsor, he is all the more believable) Johanssen, as the educated-to-fifteen-years Jordan expresses a sense of curiosity at the verge of maturity maintains a borderline childlike point of view at all times (except in bed, something "Newsweek" critic David Anson brought up with Bay in an interview). Sean Bean is marvelous as yet another of his many villains, this one being a scientist with a God-complex who never quite grasps the absolute amorality of his work. Hounsou is brutal and intimidating, and a last-minute change of heart is exactly the kind of thing that, for some reason, never seems to work in movies - he's too bad to be good. Buscemi once again helps to round out the movie as a human foil, full of humor and a cynical look at things. Linclon: "What's God?" McCord: "Well, you know when you wish for something? God's the one that ignores you."